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. 2012;7(8):e42730.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0042730. Epub 2012 Aug 20.

Effect of acupuncture in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease: a functional MRI study

Zhiqun Wang  1 , Binbin Nie, Donghong Li, Zhilian Zhao, Ying Han, Haiqing Song, Jianyang Xu, Baoci Shan, Jie Lu, Kuncheng Li
Affiliations

Effect of acupuncture in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease: a functional MRI study

Zhiqun Wang et al. PLoS One. 2012.

Abstract

We aim to clarify the mechanisms of acupuncture in treating mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer disease (AD) by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Thirty-six right-handed subjects (8 MCI patients, 14 AD patients, and 14 healthy elders) participated in this study. Clinical and neuropsychological examinations were performed on all the subjects. MRI data acquisition was performed on a SIEMENS verio 3-Tesla scanner. The fMRI study used a single block experimental design. We first acquired the baseline resting state data in the initial 3 minutes; we then acquired the fMRI data during the procession of acupuncture stimulation on the acupoints of Tai chong and Hegu for the following 3 minutes. Last, we acquired fMRI data for another 10 minutes after the needle was withdrawn. The preprocessing and data analysis were performed using the statistical parametric mapping (SPM8) software. Then the two-sample t-tests were performed between each two groups of different states. We found that during the resting state, brain activities in AD and MCI patients were different from those of control subjects. During the acupuncture and the second resting state after acupuncture, when comparing to resting state, there are several regions showing increased or decreased activities in MCI, AD subjects compared to normal subjects. Most of the regions were involved in the temporal lobe and the frontal lobe, which were closely related to the memory and cognition. In conclusion, we investigated the effect of acupuncture in AD and MCI patients by combing fMRI and traditional acupuncture. Our fMRI study confirmed that acupuncture at Tai chong (Liv3) and He gu (LI4) can activate certain cognitive-related regions in AD and MCI patients.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Experimental paradigm.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Regions showing abnormal activities in MCI subjects (a) and AD subjects (b) in resting state.
Left in picture is left in the brain. The color scale represents t values.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Regions showing increased or decreased activities in MCI subjects in the procession of acupuncture comparing to resting state.
Left in picture is left in the brain. The color scale represents t values.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Regions showing increased or decreased activities in AD subjects in the procession of acupuncture comparing to resting state.
Left in picture is left in the brain. The color scale represents t values.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Regions showing increased or decreased activities in MCI subjects after acupuncture comparing to resting state.
Left in picture is left in the brain. The color scale represents t values.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Regions showing increased or decreased activities in AD subjects after acupuncture comparing to resting state.
Left in picture is left in the brain. The color scale represents t values.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Project Sponsored by the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81000606, 61105118, 81141018) and Key Work of Special Project supported by the city government (Z101107052210002). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.